Thank you @C for the Kofi.
Yuying University
Chapter 507: Congratulations to the anchor
Wen Jianyan could hear his heart pounding in his chest. His gaze fell on the center of the map.
That was the intersection of all the auxiliary lines.
—And it was the place he had to go next.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath and checked his phone one last time.
Still no response.
“…”
What was going on?
Wen Jianyan frowned.
To be out of contact for so long, something must be wrong.
He licked his dry lips and looked at the time displayed on his phone.
There was less than an hour left until the graduation ceremony. If he wanted to figure out what was really going on in this instance, he had to act quickly.
Wen Jianyan closed his eyes, cleared his mind of the cluttered thoughts, then carefully folded the soaked map and put it in his pocket, and started moving.
He ran all the way, winding through the residential area.
Perhaps because it was approaching midnight, the number of monsters roaming the campus had increased.
They dragged their huge bodies, wrapped in translucent, blood-red sacs, slowly writhing forward on the ground. The fleshy tubes on their heads were connected to the sky, seeming to continuously transport flesh and blood nutrients upward.
Wen Jianyan was like a nimble cat. He used his advantage of being familiar with the terrain to move silently within the monsters’ blind spots.
After crossing the open space in front of the school gate, a dense patch of vegetation appeared ahead. It was unknown if it was affected by the instance, but their branches were pale and gaunt, like a dead person’s fingers, and the leaves were a deep blood-red, as if they could drip blood.
Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but speed up his pace.
—Once he passed through this thicket, he would reach the artificial lake.
The red in the sky deepened.
The blood-red fleshy tubes were dense, and a dark base color could be vaguely glimpsed between them. The closer to the artificial lake, the less black there was, until not a single gap could be seen.
The fleshy tubes intertwined, weaving into a wall of flesh, solidly supporting the space above.
The soil underfoot was damp and sticky. A step would leave a blood-red footprint. The pale, finger-like branches caught Wen Jianyan’s clothes and pants, but before they could touch his skin, they stopped abruptly, as if blocked by something.
Not far away was the dark surface of the lake.
The color was extremely black, as if it were bottomless.
Suddenly, a faint sound came from not far away. Wen Jianyan instantly tensed up and subconsciously dropped to the ground, ducking into the withered red bushes beside him.
A monster appeared not far away.
But unlike other monsters, its body seemed particularly large. But strangely, the teeth on its surface and the stacked corpses inside its body had disappeared, leaving only a sac stretched to the bursting point with blood, slowly and stickily writhing forward.
Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but hold his breath.
The monster crawled to the edge of the lake and slowly slid down. The surface of the dark lake seemed to ripple outward, and then the monster disappeared, as if it had been swallowed whole by the black lake.
The whole process made no sound, but it made one’s hair stand on end.
Wen Jianyan stood up and came to the lake’s edge.
The artificial lake was not large, but it was as black as a well, bottomless. A thick, sweet, cloying smell floated in the air, making one’s head spin.
Wen Jianyan squatted down and carefully dipped his finger into the lake water that reached his feet. He rubbed his fingertips together, smearing a patch of sticky, black-red substance.
“…”
Familiar touch, familiar smell.
The blood mud collected by the student union members as they pushed their carts to the teaching building, the liquid wrapped in the skins of the student union and club members, and the water of the artificial lake were all the same thing.
Wen Jianyan wiped the black-red viscous liquid from his fingers, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
Just as he had previously guessed…
The “Yuying Comprehensive University” instance was a morgue.
Unlike its appearance, the number of corpses in this instance was appallingly large. They filled the classrooms, lay all over the dormitories, and even became the walls and stairs of the buildings.
However, this massive number of corpses was not part of the instance’s mechanics.
To be precise… they were slowly collected.
Similar to the “Xingwang Hotel” instance, “Yuying Comprehensive University” was also an instance that would not be completely reset after clearing. Although everything seemed to return to its initial settings before the arrival of new anchors, the corpses left behind by previous anchors would be permanently retained and would accumulate without limit.
In order to prevent the corpses from reviving, the internal circulation of the instance was destroyed. It would even repeatedly send out missions, having the anchors act as ghosts, going time and time again to that land of graves, and bringing back grave soil from it to suppress the terrifying number of corpses, forcing them to remain dormant during the course of the instance.
And so, as the instance was repeatedly opened, the corpses accumulated without limit within the instance, until it became what it was now.
Wen Jianyan had never been able to figure out why this instance needed so many corpses.
Until now.
A chill rose, and Wen Jianyan couldn’t help but shiver.
The reason the instance needed so many corpses was because it was… refining corpses.
The black-red slime was the product, and the unseen monsters were the furnace.
They were afraid of light, had no consciousness, and could not communicate. They just wandered aimlessly in the dark side of the instance, devouring all human bodies they encountered—whether living or dead.
They digested the humans they devoured, turning them into a black-red liquid, and finally brought it here to be injected into the artificial lake.
And the artificial lake, in turn, injected this liquid into one skin after another, creating different ghosts, connecting them with a fleshy tube, and letting them roam the instance to bring back more corpses.
It was almost like a self-running ecological cycle.
Staring at the artificial lake, which was red to the point of being black, and the thick, dense fleshy tubes stacked on its surface, Wen Jianyan felt a little creeped out.
Indeed, in a sense, this instance was similar to the ‘Fantasy Amusement Park’. They both formed their own worlds and had a coordinated operating logic. However, if the Fantasy Amusement Park felt like some kind of precision-designed killing machine, Yuying Comprehensive University gave him the feeling of…
Something alive.
It was alive.
It breathed, had a heartbeat, felt hunger, and even thought.
The pipes overhead were the blood vessels that transported nutrients throughout the body, the writhing monsters were its stomach, and the NPCs of various statuses wandering the instance were the cells, responsible for orderly maintaining its life.
And they were now in the belly of this creature, waiting to be slowly digested and dissolved, becoming the nutrients that would eventually be injected into the artificial lake.
“…!”
Wen Jianyan shuddered. He couldn’t help but shake his head to refocus.
Now was not the time to scare himself. He had other things to do.
Wen Jianyan reached into his pocket and touched the map.
Based on the material, size, and irregular edges of the paper, this construction drawing should have been torn from a file in the library by Wang Ni and then placed in the diary for Richard.
With this, the several blanks in the previous movie plots were finally filled.
The real source of the problem in ‘Yuying Comprehensive University ‘ was not the swimming pool in the gymnasium, but the artificial lake connected to it. And the real purpose of the so-called “principal” was obviously through this “water.”
Like him, Richard had also obtained the construction drawing and naturally came to the same conclusion.
He should have destroyed both places at once.
However, after setting the gymnasium on fire, Richard gave up on his actions under the temptation of his lover’s resurrection.
With the gymnasium burned down, the school authorities were naturally to blame, and the plan was bound to be aborted. However, the artificial lake, being the root cause, was still preserved.
For this reason, the instance was established.
And in the superior conditions created—the petri dish of Nightmare—Yuying Comprehensive University continued to grow and expand… eventually becoming the deformed behemoth it was now, even far exceeding expectations.
Wen Jianyan squatted down, his gaze falling on the lake water in front of him.
The dark water surface was as calm as a mirror, reflecting his slightly blurry face.
He recalled the ‘Third Act’ of the movie.
The little boy took a step forward, slowly raised his clenched fists, and offered them to the darkness before him. Then, the scene switched, and he bent down, burying his head in the darkness, his body rising and falling rhythmically.
Gulp, gulp.
Based on the posture, what Richard had drunk at that time should have been the water from this artificial lake. And the corpse Wen Jianyan had previously seen in the washroom belonged to an anchor who had died there in a previous round.
Although the place of death was different, the mode of death should be the same.
Wen Jianyan recalled the tragic state of the corpse in the washroom.
A bloated belly, transparent from being filled with water, should correspond to the mirror image that Richard had “nurtured” in his abdomen after drinking the lake water. However, since the instance had not yet mutated, the anchor’s death state had always remained at the moment before the belly burst. If so, then in the movie image, what the little boy held out in his clenched fists should be…
Wen Jianyan seemed to have thought of something. He reached into his pocket, and soon, he took out a pair of cloudy, dead man’s eyeballs. The dark pupils were dull and lifeless, rolling silently in his palm.
He held up the two eyeballs and placed them flat in front of him.
After taking a deep breath, Wen Jianyan opened his eyes and looked out through the eyeballs.
The next second, his vision was dyed crimson.
Everything around seemed to have a deep red filter added to it, looking eerie.
Wen Jianyan’s gaze fell on the surface of the lake, and he couldn’t help but be taken aback.
But strangely, the originally ink-black lake surface had not turned red, but had become a… clear and transparent color?
…This was truly unexpected.
Wen Jianyan hadn’t expected that the most abnormal lake water, under the gaze of the red eyeballs, would actually present a normal state?
Suddenly, a system notification sound came from his ear.
“Ding, detected that the anchor has arrived at a specific area and obtained a specific item. Do you wish to consume the item and activate a special state?”
Wen Jianyan was stunned.
That’s right… Orange Candy had told him this before. Some specific items would have special effects in this instance. He had originally thought that using the eyeballs to find traces was already it. He hadn’t expected that the real special effect would actually have a system prompt.
He composed himself and answered, “Yes.”
The next second, the eyeballs in his palm disappeared, but the red filter did not. Wen Jianyan saw a fifteen-minute countdown appear in the upper right corner of his vision.
14:59
In his ear, the system’s notification sound rang again: “The special state will last for fifteen minutes. After it ends, there will be a one-hour cooldown period (in this instance, special items will not be consumed).”
So that’s how it was.
Wen Jianyan blinked, but he wasn’t too excited.
Although it was more convenient to act now, and he no longer had to worry about any side effects, a one-hour cooldown period was a bit too long, especially when the third academic year was already nearing its end…
In an hour, the graduation ceremony would have started! The special state brought by the eyeballs would probably be of little use…
All in all, there were pros and cons.
Wen Jianyan lowered his eyes and looked at the lake water in front of him again. Suddenly, as his gaze swept over the spot where the monster had submerged into the lake, he suddenly froze and couldn’t help but take a step forward.
Wait a minute, that’s…
Between the transparent lake water, a line of white could be vaguely seen, like a staircase leading straight down.
“?!”
Wen Jianyan’s eyes widened.
You can go down there??
The fifteen-minute countdown waited for no one. Wen Jianyan didn’t have time to think too much and ran over.
The staircase was very narrow, only about two people wide. Looking through the clear lake water, it was still swaying slightly with the waves, like a reflection of flowers in a mirror or the moon in the water, a mirage.
Wen Jianyan tentatively took a step onto the staircase. His left foot, which should have stepped into the lake water, did not feel any coolness. On the contrary, his foot landed firmly on the step, as if he were walking on land.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[?]
[?!]
[Damn! You can do that?]
[I guess this also counts as one of the special effects of those eyeballs, right? Without it, who could have seen that there was a staircase down there?]
As Wen Jianyan walked down step by step, the transparent lake water parted to both sides, leaving a dry path.
Like Moses parting the sea, it was eerie yet divine.
Soon, the young man submerged below the water’s surface and disappeared completely. From a normal perspective, the dark lake surface was calm and serene, like a deep well without a ripple.
Wen Jianyan descended the stairs.
Although under the special effect of the dead man’s eyeballs, the lake water around him was transparent, as he went deeper, the light also began to dim gradually. Only a faint line of light could be vaguely seen from the surface of the lake above.
The staircase continued downward.
The surroundings were so quiet that Wen Jianyan could only hear his own breathing and heartbeat, giving him the illusion of being buried alive.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan stopped abruptly.
To his left, a new path had appeared. The path was not very long, and Wen Jianyan could see the end at a glance.
At the end of the path was a closed door, and that door seemed somewhat familiar. It was hard to see clearly through the heavy lake water…
Wen Jianyan narrowed his eyes and took a step closer.
The moment he stepped onto that path, the lake water parted to both sides just like before, and the door not far away appeared clearly before Wen Jianyan’s eyes.
It was a rusty iron gate.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat
[?]
[Wait a minute?]
[Wait a minute?!]
Wen Jianyan’s breathing also became rapid. He took several large strides forward. The lake water quickly parted to both sides, leaving a dry path. He raised his hand, pressed it against the iron gate, and with almost no force, the gate creaked open.
What appeared before him was a small, dark space. It took Wen Jianyan two seconds to realize that this should be a…
Cabinet?
Just then, through the closed door, a muffled, familiar voice could be vaguely heard.
“…graduation ceremony…”
“…soon…”
This voice was… the Vice Principal’s?
—This was the cabinet in the Vice Principal’s office!!
Wen Jianyan let out a sharp gasp.
In that instant, many clues connected.
He remembered the warehouse he had been to where the grave soil was stored. There were four doors in the warehouse. One led to the cafeteria, one to the library, one to the swimming pool, and one last door remained.
And behind that door, there was a thick, almost suffocatingly sweet smell.
Based on his exploration in the instance, Wen Jianyan had finally figured out that the last door in the warehouse should lead to the cabinet in the Vice Principal’s office.
But later, he discovered that the real principal’s office was also inside this door?
This left Wen Jianyan a little confused.
But thinking of the long corridor in the cafeteria before, it wasn’t impossible to explain… perhaps behind the Vice Principal’s office was also a long corridor connecting to the warehouse, and the principal’s office was in the middle?
However, this also gave rise to a new problem.
The reason Wen Jianyan was able to enter the warehouse was because he was unloaded from a car by two student union members. And he had been in the grave soil bag the whole time, unable to see anything outside, only able to smell the increasingly strong sweet, fishy smell, and feel that he seemed to be continuously descending.
During this process, he only heard the sound of one door opening and closing.
And these did not match the characteristics of any of the entrances.
The cafeteria required passing through three doors.
The gymnasium required passing through two doors and a swimming pool.
The library required passing through at least two doors and did not require going down.
The Vice Principal’s office required going upstairs and passing through three doors and a wardrobe.
Since a warehouse only had four doors, and the entrances to these four doors were all within a certain building and required opening more than one door, how did he get in?
This question had troubled Wen Jianyan for a long time, but he had never found an answer.
Until now, after seeing this door hidden under the lake, Wen Jianyan finally saw the light and had a sudden realization.
So that’s why he had never seen that school bus inside the campus. Because after entering the school, it drove directly to the deserted artificial lake on the periphery!
And he, packed in a bag of grave soil, was carried by two students, step by step, deep into the warehouse under the lake’s surface.
At the same time, Wen Jianyan suddenly realized something. His body trembled, and he almost shivered with cold.
If he and Hugo had, at that time, not chosen the door leading to the cafeteria, but the fourth door…
They would have come directly to the bottom of the artificial lake.
And under the condition that they had not collected both eyeballs.
Let’s push the timeline a little closer.
If they had really managed to reach the Vice Principal’s office at that time and tried to return to the warehouse through the door inside the cabinet, opening the door would have also led them directly into the artificial lake.
Although Wen Jianyan had already collected both eyeballs at that time, the others had not.
As for the effect of drinking the lake water, the third act of the movie had already vividly demonstrated it for Wen Jianyan.
Thinking of this, a layer of cold sweat had already climbed up Wen Jianyan’s back.
He had long known that SS-level instances were filled with deadly traps, but this was the first time he realized how close death was to him. Just by making one wrong choice, going to one wrong place, what awaited him would surely be eternal damnation… or even a team wipe.
The danger was so terrifying, the chance of survival so slim.
Wen Jianyan could almost smell the breath of death. He watched with his own eyes as the Grim Reaper’s scythe approached from the shadows, and without his knowledge, it was already placed across his neck.
Through the cabinet door, the Vice Principal’s voice came again, pulling Wen Jianyan out of his thoughts.
“…the number of qualified ones this time…”
“…will definitely…”
However, through the cabinet door, everything was muffled and unclear.
Wen Jianyan stared at the small, fragile interior of the cabinet before him, his expression conflicted, as if he were struggling with something.
He gritted his teeth and ultimately did not step inside.
Although Wen Jianyan really wanted to continue eavesdropping, the identity of the Vice Principal NPC was too special. Getting too close could lead to being discovered, and Wen Jianyan didn’t dare to take the risk.
And there really wasn’t much time left.
Wen Jianyan glanced at the upper right corner. The countdown continued.
[10:01]
Ten minutes left.
Wen Jianyan slowly backed away and slowly closed the rusty iron gate in front of him, trying his best not to make any sound.
Finally, after closing the door, Wen Jianyan let out a long sigh of relief, turned around, and quickly returned to the initial staircase. He didn’t dare to hesitate at all and continued to descend quickly.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Eh? Wait a minute, look, is there something in the lake water on the side?]
[!!! Damn!! It seems there really is!]
Like the audience in the livestream room, Wen Jianyan also noticed something strange in the lake water beside him.
In the dark water in the distance, oval-shaped shadows floated, like cocoons. A transparent thread was connected to the bottom of the cocoons, sinking deep into the bottom of the lake, and was finally swallowed by the darkness that could not be measured by sight.
[8:43]
Time ticked by.
If he didn’t leave here before the item’s effect wore off, he would most likely be buried at the bottom of the lake.
Wen Jianyan withdrew his gaze, his footsteps not stopping.
Finally, as the road was about to end and the door to the warehouse had appeared in the dark bottom of the lake, the second fork in the road appeared.
It was still a narrow passage, and a rusty gate behind it.
Wen Jianyan did not hesitate and strode forward.
With a “creak,” the gate was opened, and Wen Jianyan rushed in.
He stumbled and rushed out of the cabinet.
What appeared before him was a familiar room: a neat solid wood desk, shelves full of books, honorary certificates hanging on the wall.
The layout was very similar to the Vice Principal’s office, but with slight differences in detail.
The moment his feet landed on the solid ground, Wen Jianyan realized where he was.
Along with the shiver, a familiar system broadcast sound rang out:
[Ding! Instance Exploration Progress 98%. Reward Points: 100000]
“Congratulations on once again breaking the exploration record of ‘Yuying Comprehensive University’. You have made history…”
[Ding! Congratulations to the anchor for activating the hidden mission of the instance: ???]
[Ding! Congratulations to the anchor for completing the hidden mission of the instance: Find the real principal’s office! Reward obtained: ■■■, has been sent to the anchor’s backpack. Please use it in a timely manner.]
That’s right, this was the hidden principal’s office.
Wen Jianyan barely had time to get excited, nor did he have time to check what the un-displayable reward was. He rushed straight to the solid wood desk not far away, squatted down, and yanked open the drawer mentioned in the mission objective.
With a whoosh, the drawer was pulled open.
It was empty.
“…”
Damn it.
Earlier, in the administration building, Chen Cheng had told him that he had seen someone who looked exactly like him walking towards the third floor with a little girl with orange hair. Wen Jianyan had guessed what they were going to do.
Just like the plot in his memory, the mirror image was a directly controllable pawn.
They had already taken the item.
Although he had anticipated this, the moment he saw the empty drawer, Wen Jianyan still felt his stomach clench. He slammed his fist on the desk, a curse almost escaping his lips.
So close.
The desk shook from his blow, and the photo on the desk fell over. The two words carved on the back were still clearly visible.
[Ideal].
…Ideal.
An ideal to refine all living and dead people into black water, create an unknown, non-concrete creature, and make the innocent suffer, and even sacrifice for it?
Wen Jianyan sneered. He picked up the photo frame, swung his arm, and the anger that had suddenly flared up in his heart, mixed with the unwillingness of having found the destination but being one step behind, was all vented at this moment. He smashed it fiercely against the wall!
To hell with it all.
With a crash, the photo frame smashed against the wall, broke into several pieces, and fell to the ground.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, turned around, straightened his collar, and calmly walked out. But just then, his peripheral vision suddenly caught something, and his footsteps involuntarily paused.
After the photo frame shattered, the photo inside fell out, face down, but it was a deep, blood-red color, bright and dazzling.
“?”
Wen Jianyan’s heart suddenly began to pound wildly.
He had checked before when he was in the ‘Memory’. This photo frame had no hidden compartment, and there were no words or patterns on the back of the photo…
But he was wrong.
It wasn’t that there was no information, but that the information on it required the “special vision” that the dead man’s eyeballs could provide to be seen!
Wen Jianyan rushed over in a single stride and picked up the photo from the fragments on the ground.
The front was still the same as in his memory: several smiling young men and women stood in front of the gate of Yuying Comprehensive University. And turning the photo over—in that instant, Wen Jianyan almost forgot to breathe.
The entire photo was dyed blood-red.
In front of the campus gate, a man stood in the right corner. His entire body was messily scribbled out with black pen strokes. He had no face, only a pair of hands were exposed, holding a box. There seemed to be some strange symbols on the surface of the box, but Wen Jianyan didn’t look closely because his gaze was completely attracted by the school gate behind.
Wen Jianyan remembered… Wang Ni had once complained in her diary that the school’s name had been changed after the new principal arrived, and she didn’t like the new name.
So what was the old name?
Behind the man who had been scribbled out in black was the marble slab with the school’s name. The words on it were a strange, thick red, as if trying to drill the contents into a person’s eyeballs.
Decai Middle School.
Unconsciously, Wen Jianyan’s back was drenched in cold sweat.
Both instances were schools, and the key core of both instances was an artificial lake. This was obviously not a coincidence.
Because it was clear… no matter what the instance changed its appearance to.
The lake was always the same.
Author’s Note:
Transported from the grave soil bag to the warehouse: Chapter 458
The cabinet in the Vice Principal’s office: Chapter 471
Omg I had a feeling at the start of the instance when it was mentioned this instance had an artificial lake !!
the author is so big brain, if it’s was me writing this wjy will become stupid like my brain😔